So I tried this out a bit... for the price ($86 shipped) I think it's a good value... but it definitely could use some extra work and maybe that's where the extra $80-100 for the Wheelstand Pro might come into play...
First off it's built to good tolerances, everything fits snugly as it should.
The welds are kind of ugly and seem bulky... they don't look bad perse and maybe I just don't know my welding but they look like they could be a little more neatly done.
The finish is good, smooth and doesn't feel cheap, doesn't feel high end either. Just feels fine.
The top portion is particle board coated with a plastic/vinyl layer on top for texture and has several bolt holes underneath that are implanted threaded receptors (think your average ikea furniture type connectors but very sturdy). It seems like it will hold up and is just wide enough for a G27 and shifter to be reasonably comfortably mounted (ie you don't hit the wheel as you shift, but just barely).
One downside is it pretty thin (guessing 3/4") and so the back screw down on a g27 shifter can't touch it... need to drop a piece of wood or something in there. Feels well attached without it anyway though.
The multiple screw holes in the top part allow for it to be center mounted or offset a few inches either way (to allow you to put the shifter on either side). I mounted right side for US style and it works fine.
When bolted together it's petty sturdy and doesn't have any notable wobble or play.
There are rubber feet at the front to help with slip, but at the back, there are none and this proves a bit of a problem.
After some brief testing the experience was very satisfactory and useable. However a few design flaws definitely showed up:
Most important is the lack of quick adjust tilt. The top portion has a screw down handle that lets you adjust it quickly and infinitely to tilt the wheel. The height adjust is similar, a screw down handle that allows you to slide it to whatever height you want.
However the main tilt mechanism at the base is a bolt through a threaded hole setup.
I can see the reason for this as it's where most of the strain is going to occur, but it provides usability issues in that you are limited to only 4 preset tilt angles and in order to change them you have to unbolt the part that holds the angle... not only that, the bold is an allen head and the part that covers the back of it is a hex nut rounded cover. So you really have to keep the included allen wrench and mini hex wrench at hand.
This also means you can't just tip the wheel up out of your lap to get up (in all fairness I am not sure how you would really accomplish this easily with another design) and to fold it flat you need to unbolt the whole thing.
You also have to unmount at least your wheel and shifter as when folded flat the wheel part lays face down on the floor. Also the angle adjustment part on the main column will prevent even that from laying flat.
Basically this can be folded up for storage, but not nearly as nicely as the wheelstand pro that can collapse with the gear attached. If you don't intent to put it away often outside it's normal upright position, this will not be a big problem.
Next up is the top part where the wheel clips has a tilt adjust... but it only tilts down towards your lap. This makes no sense to me as you will be tilting the main column towards you which will tilt the wheel down anyway... you need to tilt it up to counter this no? But so far as I can tell there is no way to reverse this as the top portion of the main tube does not come out of the center column and the whole vertical portion must be mounted in one way for the bottom tilt bolt system to work... fortunately I have it mostly upright so it's not an issue, but if you are sitting low and have to tilt it down a lot, this will not be good.
Lastly it's not terribly heavy or wide (which may also be good things) and only has rubber feet up front, so during strong sharp turns I found the base sliding out a bit under me. Also in general I found it sliding away from me a bit with brake pressure. Now this is on smooth hard flooring, on carpet it may be better. I would think attaching additional rubber feet or your own rubber matt underneath would resolve these issues and it didn't slide wildly but I doubt you could get through a whole race without it moving a few inches.
The base where the foot pedals rest has two screws and a bracket that apparently hold the Mad Catz pedals in place... The G27 does not fit this bracket so you don't install it for G27.
The G27 pedals fit nicely on the base however since they are not centered, you need to offset them a bit or else the center post is going to stop your legs from hitting the brake pedal well.
There are cutouts at the front of the base to allow the wire from the pedals to come out without smashing them flat against the base (and ultimately breaking them quickly) however you must be careful not to let the pedals slide around or you will pretty much slice off the cable.
Fortunately if you just put the bolts into the base and not the bracket, the G27 cutouts on the bottom of the pedal set sort of hold them at a very good position where the cable is not in jeopardy. This is not included in the instructions for G27 and they probably should do so.
I put an hour of driving in with it and found it very useable. My back hurt pretty fast but that was more due to my chair than the wheelstand.
Overall I would say for the price in the UK it's a no brainer.
In the US it's a solid way to go if you can’t afford the WSP for $180 or whatever it's going for.
However I believe the older WSP v1 goes for significantly less and although I never used one, it seems to overcome a lot of the design problems with this unit so I would spring for that if you can afford to do so.
At then end of the day you would be hard pressed to build anything as good for the price especially factoring in your time (unless you have access to a decent shop) so I give it a solid B+grade value for money.
Overall I have to give it a C in performance. Useable, but better options out there for not a LOT of money.
If you only have $100 and need a wheelstand, go for it, it gets the job done.
